Motivated by personal curiosity, Chris Miranda put himself through 100 straight hours of virtual reality. During that time he did everything in VR, including constant movement, sleeping, and even showering.
The extended test is something we, the hosts of the ResearchVR podcast, are very interested in doing ourselves to see the effects of prolonged VR use on the human body and mind. We had a chance to take a deep dive into the results with Miranda, with the support of Erika Barraza from Singularity University.
Miranda works at Vivid Vision and is a host of one of the first podcasts covering modern VR topics, called EnterVR. As a matter of fact, being a guest on EnterVR was one of the main motivations for Az Balabanian to start doing ResearchVR.
Barraza is a Senior Manager at Singularity University. Together with Az and UploadVR she is working on an initiative called VR for Good.
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As many in the VR community have wondered, Miranda wanted to know what happens during and after prolonged use of VR. It quickly turned out nobody knew, so he tried it himself.
We’ve asked the smartest people we could find the question “what would happen after prolonged use?” Developers, scientists, doctors and entrepreneurs would all come back and answer the same thing: “I don’t know.”
A prolonged session was done in Berlin by Thorsten Wiedemann, founder and artistic director of A MAZE Festival, managed by Sara Lisa Vogel. This offered a good idea of what to expect and what to look out for:
- After waking up one could forget he or she was in VR
- Eyestrain
- Physiological needs
- Blue light during sleep
The initial idea for Miranda was to run a full blown scientific case study, with a wide range of measurements. Even though Miranda reached out to scientists about collaborating, it didn’t work out. The reasons are understandable. He had no scientific training nor a clear understanding of what could be measured. However, the less official and detailed approach worked out in Miranda’s favor.
To hear the results of the test and adventures of Miranda during 100 hours in Virtual Reality, tune in to the newest episode of Research VR: Episode 28 – Jump into a rabbit hole – 100h in VR of Chris Miranda.
